"It's my hobby," said Belling, who spends 15 to 20 hours a week following the sport. "Everybody should have a hobby."

How did he become interested in horse racing?

"How does anybody get interested in anything? 'Why' may be easier to answer," he said. "I really enjoy the mental challenge of trying to figure out who is going to win a race, which horses are going to run well, and which aren't. It's a very analytical thing, with so many aspects and elements to it.

"That's the way my brain works. And you can bet on it, and you're rewarded when you're right, which makes it satisfying."

Add to that, he said, "that horses are beautiful animals and interesting creatures and the sport is so filled with characters, it's hard to shake the bug once it bites you."

Belling "grew up in the Fox Valley around dairy cows" and watched the Triple Crown as a boy "because they were sporting events and they were on TV." He became serious about horse racing after moving to Milwaukee and being that much closer to Arlington Park and the off-track betting parlors in Illinois. He bought his first horse in 1993.

"I said, 'All my friends are buying boats. I'll buy a horse.' I didn't expect to buy a second one."

But over the years, he has had investments in about 35 horses.

"Investment is the wrong word," he said. "Ownership."

Belling buys "fractional interests," usually about 15%, in horses as part of a syndicate that spends $50,000 to $1 million on a horse.

"I could go down to Arlington and buy regular horses that run in regular races and own 100% of them," he said.

But as a member of a syndicate, Belling said, he "can own a smaller piece of a horse that can be spectacular."

The syndicate's managing partner makes the decisions, and "I offer input when I think I have it. But the point of being in a partnership means you don't have a lot of say."

How many horses does he own today?

"You would think I would know that off the top of my head. I don't. Let me think."

He does. "It's confusing," he said. "We just retired a horse, and another one we're breeding."

Pause. "Six."

Belling said that when he chooses to buy part of a horse, "I always ask the question: 'Does this horse have the potential for greatness?' "

A few of the horses he has owned shares of "turned out to be great. A few were OK. A lot were nothing," he said.

And then there was Captain Bodgit, the horse Belling co-owned that ran in the Derby in 1997.

"We bought him several months before the Derby. He had already won as a 2-year-old and showed signs of ability. Our group paid half a million for him at the time. That number would be many times higher now," Belling said. "In the last 15 years, people in horse racing have gone nuts about the Derby and make irrational decisions. They spend fortunes to have a chance at winning. A lot of people want to be there and will spend insane amounts of money on a horse that looks like it will get you there."

Captain Bodgit not only got him there, the horse came in second "by about 12 inches." The experience taught him that "it's a lot easier to come in fourth by nine lengths than second by a foot."

"I've only replayed that race in my mind 55,000 times," he said.

Losing "was the most exhilarating and frustrating 25 seconds of my life."

But just having a horse in the Derby, he said, "was the most excited I've ever been."

As advertised.

NBC's telecast of the Kentucky Derby will be seen locally on WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m.

Before you place your bets, consult Belling's picks. Hewill post his predictions for the race on his blog at www.belling.com.

David Letterman is a guest on "Live With Regis and Kelly" Friday at 9 a.m. on WISN-TV (Channel 12). Letterman rarely makes guest appearances on other shows. This must be payback for all those times Reege played the fool on Letterman's "Late Night" show.

In my column on whether watching TV at bedtime interferes with sleep patterns, I used the term "the arms of Morpheus," as a metaphor for sleep. Not so, wrote Bob Kettler, associate professor of anesthesiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "It would be more appropriate to refer to someone as being in the arms of Somnus rather than Morpheus," he wrote. "Somnus was the god of sleep and the father of Morpheus, the god of dreams. When someone was asleep Morpheus would appear at the bedside and assume the form of the person being dreamed about. Because Morpheus was at the bedside acting out the dream, the sleeper couldn't be in his arms."

Kettler admits this is a common mistake and may seem a "minor point," but it is an important one "to an anesthesiologist who regularly gives the drug" named in his honor - morphine.